Having so said, the friar, chanting a hymn in praise of St. Lawrence, opened the casket, and shewed the coals. Whereon the foolish crowd gazed a while in awe and reverent wonder, and then came pressing forward in a mighty throng about Fra Cipolla with offerings beyond their wont, each and all praying him to touch them with the coals. Wherefore Fra Cipolla took the coals in his hand, and set about making on their white blouses, and on their doublets, and on the veils of the women crosses as big as might be, averring the while that whatever the coals might thus lose would be made good to them again in the casket, as he had often proved. On this wise, to his exceeding great profit, he marked all the folk of Certaldo with the cross, and, thanks to his ready wit and resource, had his laugh at those, who by robbing him of the feather thought to make a laughing-stock of him. They, indeed, being among his hearers, and marking his novel expedient, and how voluble he was, and what a long story he made of it, laughed till they thought their jaws would break; and, when the congregation was dispersed, they went up to him, and never so merrily told him what they had done, and returned him his feather; which next year proved no less lucrative to him than that day the coals had been. (1) Onion. (2) Diminutive of Arriguccio. (3) Whale. (4) Filth. (5) Hog. (6) The works of this painter seem to be lost. (7) One of the humorous ineptitudes of which Boccaccio is fond. (8) An abbey near Lucca famous for its doles of broth. (9) Perhaps part of the "sesto" of Florence known as the Borgo, as the tradition of the commentators that the friar's itinerary is wholly Florentine is not to be lightly set aside. (10) Il Garbo, a quarter or street in Florence, doubtless so called because the wares of Algarve were there sold. Rer. Ital. Script. (Muratori: Suppl. Tartini) ii. 119. Villani, Istorie Fiorentine, iv. 12, xii. 18. (11) A famous tavern in Florence. Florio, Vocab. Ital. e Ingl., ed Torriano, 1659. (12) A "borgo" in Florence. Villani, Istorie Fiorentine, iv. 7. (13) A suburb of Florence on the Arno, ib. ix. 256. (14) The land of Cajolery. (15) The land of Drollery. (16) The land of Lies. (17) I.e. in false promises: suggested by Dante's Pagando di moneta senza conio. Parad. xxix. 126. (18) A reference to sausage-making. (19) I.e. cakes fashioned in a hollow ring, and wines in leathern bottles. (20) Grubs. (21) In allusion to the shapeless fish, so called, which was proverbially taken as a type of the outlandish. (22) A jeu de mots, "pennati," pruning-hooks, signifying also feathered, though "pennuti" is more common in that sense. (23) Takemenottotaskanitlikeyou. (24) Fatti alle finestre, a subterfuge for factum est. (25) Piagge, jocularly for pagine: doubtless some mighty tome of school divinity is meant.